


Solstice Lullaby

by LinneaKou



Series: Strange Times in Lucía Bay [3]
Category: H2O: Just Add Water, Mako Mermaids, Splash (1984), Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Adoption, Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Childhood Memories, Family Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Multi, Prequel, Side Story
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-27 19:12:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17167718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LinneaKou/pseuds/LinneaKou
Summary: In 1994, Boris and Amanda Nikiforov adopted a quiet little boy who would eventually grow up to be a merman. In the meantime, though, there are plenty of embarrassing childhood stories to tell...[Prequel toSaltwater Melodies, done for Vikmas 2018]





	Solstice Lullaby

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Birthday to one of my best boys. Also, shout out to Cary for kicking butt at school. This was started as a reward for hard work and studying.
> 
> Merry Vikmas to all, and to all a good night!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It all begins with an adoption.

“You know, Vitya wasn’t always so talkative--”

“ _Mom!_ ”

“It’s true! You used to be quiet as a mouse, it took you months to talk in public--”

“We don’t need to hear this story, Mom!”

“Yes we do.”

“Dad. I’m disowning you.”

“Hah! Nice try.”

“Baby, there’s nothing to be ashamed of! You were an adorable kid!”

“ _Mom._ ”

“Go ahead, Mrs. Nikiforov. I want to hear this, actually.”

“I hate you all.”

“Aww.”

“So anyway, back in 1994, we decided to take our honeymoon in Russia…”

 

* * *

 

Boris swore people weren’t staring, but Mandy really doubted it. She knew exactly what she looked like, and while she wouldn’t have been out of place on the streets of downtown Detroit, this wasn’t America. Her wildly-teased hair and black skin alone stuck out in here in Eastern Europe, and her clothes certainly didn’t help. People weren’t dressed like Janet Jackson or Cindy Crawford here.

It had been exactly one week since she and Boris had had their civil service wedding at City Hall back in California. Her new mother-in-law had offered up the family dacha for a honeymoon, and Boris had gotten it in his head that they needed to visit Saint Petersburg as soon as they recovered from the jetlag and before they left for the countryside. He had an ulterior motive, of course.

Mandy had met her husband during her sophomore year of college, and it had taken her a year to get over his terrible first impression (or maybe it had taken a year for him to grow the hell up) before he’d managed to charm her into a first date. She and Boris dated for _years_ before becoming engaged. They’d been living together for months before Boris had popped the question, and over the course of their engagement they’d noticed a tiny person-shaped hole in their living arrangement.

She’d dreamed of having children ever since her youngest brother had been born, planned for it since high school. She wasn’t going to let her broken ovaries stop her, so they’d applied and had been cleared for international adoption. _It’s time_ , the universe seemed to be yelling at her. And now, here they were, in Boris’s parents’ hometown, about to catch a taxi out to a state-run orphanage.

Her Russian was fairly decent, but that was in a classroom context if she were being honest with herself. Maybe it would be easier one-on-one with individual people, but as she listened to the radio show that their driver had on, she had trouble making out what the host was saying through the fuzzy reception. She’d greeted the driver easily enough, though. Maybe adopting a Russian kid would help her fluency.

 _I could be leaving this country as a mother_ , she realized. Her heartbeat quickened, and she found herself threading her fingers through her husband’s.

He squeezed her hand and buried his nose in her hair. “Nervous?”

“Mostly excited,” she whispered. Her leg began to jiggle against her will.

“Me too,” he said. He kissed her temple and rubbed his thumb over her knuckles.

The ride from the hotel to the orphanage out west, so close to the Baltic that Mandy could smell the crisp seaside air, was both too long and too short, and traffic had been ridiculous. Neither Boris nor Mandy was licensed to drive on the Saint Petersburg streets, but even with an experienced driver, the ride had been harrowing.

The social worker who met them at the sign-in desk, to Mandy’s relief, was willing to speak slowly so that Mandy was able to properly understand her. She was seemingly fairly excited to give them both the grand tour, and Mandy noticed a dozen curious eyes peeking out from doorways as the social worker led them deeper into the building.

“They’re all staring at me,” she muttered in English, and Boris laughed.

“They’ve never seen such a beautiful woman before,” he said. “And they all want you to be their mother.”

She doubted that, but then the social worker was letting them into what turned out to be a playroom and her jaw dropped.

There were… _so many kids_. It was like a kindergarten classroom, but absolutely packed with children all over the floor and clustered around little tables and sitting on every available surface. The room’s noise level dropped a little bit as the older kids turned to look at them, and Mandy gulped.

“These are all of our children aged five and under,” the social worker said, as she shut the door behind them. “You said you would prefer a younger child?”

“We’re open to anything,” Boris said as Mandy frowned. They hadn’t specified any ages. _What a strange assumption_.

The social worker’s smile didn’t slip at all. “Of course. Well, if you’d like to introduce yourselves…”

Boris immediately tugged Mandy away to go talk to the children at the nearest table.

A lot of the kids were incredibly shy, so Mandy let Boris talk to them and coax them into feeling comfortable. Once they were, most of the kids they greeted transformed into adorable chatterboxes.

The nice thing about young, young children was that their speech was incredibly simple, so once they were off Mandy had no trouble following along. There were two little girls, a pair of sisters, who regaled her with their plans to be ballerinas when they were grown up; a little boy at the table nearest the window showed her his rocket designs; one sweet girl would only talk to Mandy if addressed through a stuffed bear.

Now, she adored kids. She wouldn’t have become an elementary school teacher if she didn’t. The problem was… there were just _so many_.

“How are we supposed to choose?” she whispered to Boris, several dozen children later. “We haven’t even gotten to talk to half of the kids in this room, I’m getting overwhelmed.”

“We don’t have to choose today,” Boris said. “We’re just meeting the kids, getting a feeling. It’s fine, Manda. Don’t feel overwhelmed, _moya lyubov’_ , there’s no pressure.”

 _No pressure, he says_. Mandy excused herself to retreat to the outskirts of the playroom and wander, doing what Boris called her “teacher walk” as she just observed all the kids playing and drawing and building with blocks. Now that she was staying back and just watching, the kids mostly ignored her. _This_ she was used to. Most of the kids in her kindergarten class at Hanon tended to make their own inroads into their classwork and activities after she set them up.

She was just a little surprised when she felt a gentle tug on her coat, and she glanced down only to meet the biggest blue eyes she’d ever seen.

“Hello there,” she said, immediately switching into her Miss Addams, Kindergarten Teacher voice. “What’s…”

The child who’d pulled her coat shrank away, hiding behind a brandished picture book. She-- or he-- peeked out from behind the book, which had clearly been well-loved to the point that the illustrated cover had long ago fallen off.

“What have you got, there, _zaika_?” Mandy asked, squatting down so she was closer to the child’s eye level.

The child blinked those blue, _blue_ eyes at her and peered out from under a thick fringe of hair that was so light it was actually silver, shining even in the muted light of the playroom.

“Do you want to show me?”

The child solemnly reached out a tiny, pale hand, and Mandy let herself be led to the far side of the room. There was a little nook with a few creaky chairs nestled between two bookshelves, and Mandy was amused when she sat down in one chair and the child immediately tried to climb onto her lap. “Here, baby,” she said, reaching down so she could pull the child up and settle back in her seat. “What book are we reading?”

The book was an illustrated retelling of _Swan Lake_ , and while Mandy had a bit of trouble with all the Cyrillic she knew the story well enough to bullshit her way through it. It wasn’t like her new acquaintance could tell.

At one point, the child fell asleep against her chest, and Mandy barely suppressed a coo at the sight of the little face gone slack against her collarbone. A shadow fell over them, and she glanced up at her husband, who was grinning.

“Who’s your friend?” he asked, squatting down.

“Dunno,” she said, keeping her voice pitched low. “Not too talkative.”

“Awh.” Boris looked up and patted her hand. “One second, I’m going to go chat up a caretaker.”

Mandy raised her eyebrow at him, and he made kissy noises at her before picking his way across the playroom again. The little one in her lap stirred and resettled, nestled under her chin.

The next time she looked up, Boris was headed back towards her, this time accompanied by a woman whom Mandy assumed worked at the orphanage. The caretaker’s face lit up when she saw the child in Mandy’s lap.

“This is Yulia,” Boris said, gesturing. “Yulia, who have we got here?”

Yulia couldn’t seem to stop grinning. “Oh, that’s little Vitya. I’m surprised! He doesn’t often approach strangers.”

“Vitya?” Mandy mused, and the little boy made a soft noise, blinking up at her. “Did you have a nice nap, Vitya?”

He blinked again, his eyes bleary, before letting his head drop against her chest again.

Boris let out a surprised bark of laughter. “Oh, did we wake you up?”

Little Vitya looked wordlessly up at Boris, and Mandy had to choke down a snort at the considering expression on the boy’s face.

“Am I being scrutinized?” Boris asked, and he dropped to his knees next to Mandy’s chair. “Hello there, buddy.”

Vitya sat up a little and then, to Mandy’s delight, reached out and tugged on Boris’s ponytail.

“Yeah,” Boris agreed, a wide grin stealing across his face. “Everybody wants to do that.”

Vitya huffed and returned his attention to the book still sitting open on Mandy’s lap, and he pushed the picture book towards Boris, who took it and flipped through it with a serious expression. “ _Swan Lake_ , huh? That’s some interesting reading we’re doing here.”

“Maybe you can help me with the words I can’t read,” Mandy added.

Yulia had to leave to go settle a few rowdy kids on the other side of the room, and when she came back, Vitya had fallen asleep on Mandy’s lap again, clutching Boris’s hand. “I think he likes you both,” she said, sounding like she’d been whacked in the face with a two-by-four. “It took me weeks to get to this point with him when I first started working with him.”

“I think I need to take him home with me,” Mandy said, stroking the little boy’s silky hair. “Let’s do this.”

Boris made a noise of agreement at her side, and little Vitya shifted in her lap.

 

Of course, it wasn’t quite that simple.

Boris and Mandy had to leave little Vitya behind after their visiting time was over, and it broke Mandy’s heart to walk away from the toddler. He hadn’t thrown a tantrum, but he’d definitely burst into silent tears as Mandy put him down and said her goodbyes for the day. The last she saw of him that afternoon, he was crying into Yulia’s leg.

The next day, when they’d gone back to officially initiate the adoption process, Mandy had insisted on seeing him again right away. The way his face had lit up when he caught sight of them settled it for her, and so did the way he’d clung to her as they went through the papers and were briefed on his history with the orphanage.

He’d been at the orphanage roughly since the day of his birth, according to the paperwork, and was turning two years old on Christmas Day. Mandy couldn’t contain the surprised noise she’d made at that. “Wouldn’t you know, that’s one of our favorite days,” she told Vitya, who’d been shifted over to Boris’s lap for a while. “You have such a special birthday!”

Vitya blinked at her, still smiling shyly, as the case worker from the previous day went over all of the requirements they’d need to fulfill in order to officially adopt him and bring him back to America with them at the end of their honeymoon. There were some vaccines they’d need to get squared away, and a ton of American forms to fill out from the embassy, but Mandy just demanded to get a headstart so they could take the little boy with them to the dacha for the rest of their stay.

“You know,” Boris said in English as the case worker fetched more of the forms they needed to go over. “Most people wait a year after the wedding to have kids.”

“You’ve been living with me for how long, now?” Mandy demanded. “Are you getting cold feet on me?”

“Nah, I’m just saying. We’re weird.”

“Yep, I sure hope the little man is okay with that.”

Several hours later, they left with Viktor in tow, headed for the hospital and a same-day visit with a pediatrician. A quick stop at the embassy to file the paperwork, and _he was theirs_.

Mandy thanked her blessed stars that they’d gotten so much of the work done in advance before arriving in the country. Viktor was cleared to leave on schedule with them, and would only require one check-in before they bundled him onto the plane back to Germany. It took a little bit more wrangling with the two airlines that they had their flights with, but both Aeroflot and Lufthansa were persuaded and bribed into giving them some wiggle room so both Boris and Mandy would be accompanying the toddler on his journey to his new home.

Mandy held Viktor in her lap as he received his required vaccinations, and he’d cried silently into her collar at the needle pricks. She’d only barely been kept from immediately spoiling him with sweets in apology, and Boris had managed to save the day with a plush dog that he’d brought with them from America. They left the pediatrician’s office for a quick celebratory lunch, and then set off for the dacha to spend the rest of the week getting to know Viktor and settling him into their lives.

 

At the end of their honeymoon, Boris and Mandy had learned several things about their new son:

  * He’d eat almost anything and didn’t turn his nose up at much.
  * He loved the water and would have stayed in the lake all night if he hadn’t needed to sleep.
  * He wouldn’t fight them on baths and thought bubble baths were the _best thing ever_.
  * He loved reading and especially loved picture books, which Mandy had brought plenty of.
  * He was afraid of the dark, and needed his bedroom door cracked open to let the light in.
  * He didn’t like falling asleep alone.
  * He _did_ know how to talk a little, but really had to work up to it.
  * He loved music and dancing, and would giggle very loudly when Mandy waltzed and spun with him to the classical music on the radio.



“Your mother is going to love him,” Mandy said as the toddler wiggled excitedly to the beat of a grainy jazz song on a tape cassette Boris had brought along. “He’s got such a good taste in music.”

The trumpet came in, and Vitya clapped in delight at the new loud sound he was hearing.

“Well, if your dad can win her over enough to not throw wine in his face, there’s hope,” Boris said, wagging his eyebrows at her. “I already know your parents are going to adore him.”

“He’s going to be spoiled rotten,” Mandy agreed. “We’re going to have to set up _ground rules_.”

Boris snorted. “Yeah, fat chance of those being followed.”

(He was right, of course. Mandy’s parents would somehow find a way to slip Viktor a little treat or cash every time they saw him for years. It was a wonder he hadn’t ended up a spoilt brat.)

 

Viktor fussed a little during takeoff and landing on both flights home, and Mandy soothed him as best as she could through his ears popping and the cabin’s pressure changing. He mostly napped during the long stretches in the air, and Mandy read countless things to him in both Russian and English while he was awake. It was an exciting thought, the idea of raising a bilingual child. He’d even begun to parrot words back to her in both languages.

The amount of luggage they were hauling around had grown, of course - they’d gotten some clothes for Viktor while in Russia, enough to fill another suitcase. Viktor dozed off on Boris’s shoulder as they waited for their bags to come around on the carousel, and only woke up when they headed outside to hail a taxi home.

“Welcome to Lucía Bay, Vitya,” Mandy said as they entered the city limits, passing the sign that proclaimed the population number of the college town.

“We’d better get that sign fixed,” Boris added, making his wife snort.

When the taxi pulled up to their driveway, Mandy was shocked to see a couple rental cars parked in front of their house. “Oh my god,” she said as she gently maneuvered a snoozing Viktor out of the backseat. “I think my parents are here.”

“You think he’ll be okay with receiving the full Addams Family Treatment?” Boris wondered, and then there was no more time to think on it as their front door banged open and Mandy’s twin sister ran out, screaming loud enough to alert the neighborhood.

Turned out, Mandy’s excited international phone call to her parents about their newest addition had spurred her parents and all of her siblings to buy plane tickets out to San Diego so they could all converge on Mandy and Boris’s house and get the place toddler-proofed and the bedroom decorated for the very first grandbaby of the family. Both Boris and Mandy’s jaws dropped when they saw what had been done to the spare bedroom they’d reserved for a kid - the walls had been painted a soft sky blue, a toddler-sized trundle bed that matched the existing furniture had been assembled and made up with adorable dinosaur sheets, and what looked like an entire Beanie Babies catalogue had been unloaded into the toy chest that Boris’s father had carved for Boris and his brothers years ago.

Mandy had blubbered her thanks for the rest of the day as each of her siblings introduced themselves to their new nephew and were all charmed by the sleepy toddler. He seemed to like his new bedroom a lot, and happily went down for a nap early in the afternoon as the family moved their celebration outside into the backyard.

“If you adopt any more, we ain’t doin’ that all again,” Mandy’s dad said as Boris handed him a beer.

“No, I think we’re good,” Mandy agreed. “You guys did _not_ have to do this.”

“Of course we did,” Mandy’s mom said, rolling her eyes. “My first grandbaby needs a place to sleep!”

“He had a place to sleep, Ma!”

Mandy was still bickering with her mom hours later when Boris ducked inside to check on Viktor and brought him outside to explore the backyard. She had to stop talking and press a hand to her heart as the rest of her family fell silent watching the little boy poke around, Boris in tow.

“You’re a mother now,” Mandy’s mom said. “How does it feel?”

“Unreal,” Mandy answered, clutching at her chest. “Absolutely unreal.”

“And it only gets crazier from here,” Mandy’s dad said. “Wait until he starts talking back to you.”

 

* * *

 

“Grandpa said that?”

“More or less. Baby, we all talked back to him, it was a rite of passage.”

“I didn’t talk back to you much, did I?”

“You had your moments, Vitenka.”

“I don’t remember that!”

“Of course you don’t. You mostly just asked ‘why’ about everything.”

“ _Dad!_ ”

“It’s adorable, Viktor.”

“Yeah, he still asks ‘why’ about everything. It’s getting really old.”

“I thought knowledge was power.”

“Boris, you still ask me dumb questions all the time. Shush. Did I tell you about how he didn’t believe me that you can’t eat raw brownie batter last week?”

“Seriously?”

“Look, I’m not making any excuses. Besides, I had to eat the raw brownie batter, that was the only way I’d get to actually taste the chocolate.”

“I’m going to dump all your laundry out on the lawn, you traitor. I don’t burn stuff anymore!”

“Speaking of which, I’m going to check the grill--”

“ _Vitya_ , if you start on me then you’re not getting your birthday present.”

“Pffft.”

“Fine, I’ll tell another baby story. _I’ll get the photo album._ ”

“ _MOTHER._ ”

“You haven’t heard about the time he shaved his eyebrows off, dear. That’s a funny one.”

“Ugh!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy holidays!

**Author's Note:**

> Of course there's going to be more. When have I ever shown self-restraint?
> 
> Welcome back to Lucía Bay, y'all. I missed this place. :D
> 
> As usual, you guys can find me on [Twitter](https://www.twitter.com/linneakou), [Tumblr](https://linneakou.tumblr.com), and [Pinterest](https://www.pinterest.com/linneakou/)... but additionally, you can now find me on [Dreamwidth](https://linneakou.dreamwidth.org/) and [Pillowfort!](https://www.pillowfort.io/LinneaKou) Come say hi and talk to me about our lords and saviors, Misters Katsuki-Nikiforov!


End file.
